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Saturday, December 18, 2004

important things in the waking world

I'm still getting over that bar with all your friends,
lying here in pajamas
and stretched upwards,
cradling my head
and I'm trying to hold onto
my dream. You said we all

sleep fetuslike. In my dream
I was a fetus, when we all went to
a bar and brought us our orders.
I was the one who had the embryotic fluid.
Duh.
They set an egg in front of me. Last
night, I dreamed I was guest-starring
on Buffy.

i feel like the intersection of
all the matthues, a lonely desert
crossroads of two long highways.
But I'm just the crossroads itself:
no length, no depth, just a small
inclusion of substance.

I'm wearing my pajamas. I barely
ever wear my pajamas to bed
anymore: they're for entertaining,
not sleep. People keep intruding on my
night-time. No lights out for me.
Now, when I fall asleep I'm always
naked, half-undressed, or changing.

And my hair is getting longer. I can
already hide my eyes in it, like
a pillow I carry around during
the day. The fluffy back of my head,
like goose feathers, something
to keep me warm in winter.
Keep me warm in winter.

Last night I dreamt you were Buffy,
the vampire slayer, and I was a friend
of your friends', Willow's internet
pen-pal. I was your love-interest
for the season. I tried to read the
lines so we'd be friends, so we'd never
start kissing. I liked your friends, I
knew them so well, how Xander would
flinch and Willow would clap like a girl when
you killed vampires.

I've always been out in the cold,
known so many gangs but never worked
with anyone. When the wind comes, I go
into fetal position, living off my
own warmth. When we go to restaurants
I forget to bring my own food and I listen
to my stomach growl, thinking perhaps
that I'm digesting my own fat, in
the absence of kosher food, living off myself
until something better comes along.

And I don't say much when your friends
talk, I like to listen
and think of our bar-nights like episodes.

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